Four Hundred Years
by downbutnotout
Summary: In her parallel universe, Rose gets thrown a fez through a wormhole and she's hoping it will take her to her Doctor. Fix-it for the 50th. Major Doctor/Rose.


_A/N: This is me letting out all the Doctor/Rose feelings I have because I'm really upset about the fact that there was none of them in the 50th. And yes I realize there are more plot holes in this fic than there are in your average DW episode but I'm going for fluff okay, not continuity. There are also tweaks and simplifications just for ease and readability. Please don't eat me xx_

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**Four Hundred Years**

David peered down his nose through his glasses at the paper.

"They're talking about Scotland's go for independence already," he said to Rose, who was making tea for both of them. "That vote's ages away still."

"Next spring?" she asked.

"Yeah, something like that."

Rose came over from the kitchen and placed the two cups of tea on the table. She moved behind David, wrapping her arms around him and resting her chin on his shoulder to look at the paper headlines with him.

"Bloody nationalists," she said jokingly.

"Yeah."

Rose kissed David's cheek and then sat down across the table from him, holding the tea in both hands. She watched his eyes flicker across the page, his brow furrowed and his lips moving with the words. The Doctor used to look the same sometimes.

Rose sighed. It had been years since she last saw the Doctor on that beach. It had also been years TenToo whispered that he loved her, and since that day he had renamed himself David. They lived together for two years before marrying, and they had settled into mundane routine only occasionally broken by Torchwood reports of alien activity. Nothing exciting had happened in months, though.

"You okay?" David asked.

Rose blinked and looked over at him, but her mind lagged. She was thinking about the Doctor, who still crossed her mind from time to time but with decreasing frequency. She had managed to separate David and the Doctor; it had really only taken a couple of months.

David was gentler than the Doctor ever was, because The Doctor always had the burden the universe on him so he alternated between rage and flippancy to cope. David was still passionate, just more constant and less volatile.

"Rose?" David said, speaking this time with some fear because he could tell from the way Rose was looking at him that she was thinking about the Doctor. David knew they were essentially the same person, but he felt so separate from the Doctor that it stung like a betrayal when Rose thought of him.

Rose finally snapped out of her reverie, shaking her head slightly as if to physically knock her thoughts out. "Sorry," she said, "I was just-"

She was cut off by a weird sound, like a snapping, and all of a sudden a hole appeared in the kitchen. It looked like a wormhole or a vortex, rotating air.

"What is that?" Rose said, jumping to her feet.

David moved over to her side automatically, though his eyes were locked on the vortex.

"I wonder where it goes..." he said, speaking mostly to himself. His mind was whirling, taking in the height and width of the thing, processing the color of the shimmer and the direction of rotation and-

A fez. A red fez came flying through the vortex and landed in front of David and Rose. They looked at it, and then looked at each other.

"It had to come from somewhere," she said, eyebrows raised suggestively.

"You want to go in there, don't you?" he said with a grin.

"Oh come on, let's give it a go! Nothing exciting has happened in ages!"

He paused, staring at it. His smile faded as he mulled over the physics. "The way wormholes normally work though..."

"What?" she prompted.

"Well, they're normally one way, aren't they? We'd have to reverse the polarity."

"Right... Would Torchwood have the gear for that?"

"Probably."

"Let's go then!"

Rose darted off to get her coat and her shoes and she babbled the entire way to Torchwood headquarters about the possibilities of what was on the other side. The one thing she never mentioned, though, was the possibility that maybe it was a wormhole to another universe. Maybe to the Doctor's universe.

David could see the hope in her face when he glanced sideways at her while he was driving, though. She wanted to see him again, that Doctor, and he was afraid. David knew Rose loved him, sure, but he still knew he didn't compare to the real Doctor. He wasn't any Time Lord. He hadn't saved any planets.

At Torchwood they sweet talked their way into getting the weekend techs to let them borrow two Polarity Magnet Machines. Neither of them were entirely sure how they worked, but Rose was confident David could figure it out. He had the Doctor's intelligence, after all.

Back at home, they set to work. David knew he had to change the wiring and the coding of the devices to make them operable on wormholes rather than just magnetic fields on Earth like they were designed for. Rose watched him fiddle with his tools and the laptop he connected to the machines and thought about how the entire process would take two seconds with a sonic screwdriver. It took David a little over an hour to tweak them the way he wanted, and all the while Rose glanced between him and the wormhole anxiously.

When he finally stood up from the kitchen table and announced that he was done, she basically snatched the machines from his hands.

"Do you even know what to do?" he laughed.

"Well... no," she said abashedly.

"Here," he said, taking the first from her. "I'm going to activate this one and place it under the wormhole. As soon as I do the polarity will start to reverse but you have to activate yours and throw it through the wormhole as soon as it starts, or else it'll just close up." He was excited now, talking fast. "Ready?"

"Ready."

But he paused. He was so afraid that it was a wormhole to the Doctor.

"I love you," he told her.

Confusion flickered across her face, and a hint of impatience.

_Oh God, don't let me lose her._

She said, "I love you, too," and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. He wasn't entirely convinced. The machine she was holding pressed against his chest like a weight.

"Let's go then!" he said, plastering excitement on his face. He activated his machine and dove underneath the wormhole, feeling it pulling at his clothes and trying to draw him in. With one hand he anchored the machine to the floor, with the other he grappled for a hold on the wooden floor. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Rose activate her machine and throw it into the wormhole. She nodded at him excitedly and he scrambled out from under the wormhole, stumbling towards her.

"Can we go through now?" she asked, raising her voice over the sound that was coming from the wormhole.

He nodded and grinned. "Allons-y!"

Rose laughed. She grabbed David's hand and together they ran into the wormhole.

Their crash to the ground on the other side was softened by grass. David and Rose were laughing; he found her hand again and squeezed it.

"Yes, hello!"

Their laughter was stopped by an unfamiliar voice. A man with a bowtie was peering down at them.

"Ah, helloooo!"

They got to their feet.

"Hi," Rose said. "I'm Rose and this is David." He waved obligingly then stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels, looking at the bow tie man.

"Yes, yes I know," the man said. "Well I know you're Rose, and I know you're..." He trailed off, looking at David. "You're the Meta-Crisis Doctor aren't you?"

David was momentarily put off, but he recovered quickly. "Been a while since anyone called me that. 'The Meta-Crisis Doctor.' So who're you, then?"

"I'm the Doctor, ta-da!" he said, spreading his arms and giving a twirl. "The Eleventh, actually, and there's another one here. Well, there, actually." Eleven pointed behind David and Rose, who whirled around and found themselves face to face with Ten.

He was holding the Polarity Magnet Machine that Rose had thrown through the wormhole ahead of her and David. "I had just gone to get this, it came flying through and I wanted to know what it was..." His voice was a million miles from his thoughts, though, which were focused on the blonde haired girl he thought he'd never see again.

And seeing her was tearing him apart. He'd been with Donna lately, been traveling with her and her humor had been helping him move on but now Rose was here again in front of him, reopening old wounds. She was the one girl he had ever allowed himself to love, after all, the girl who could follow and understand his moods and know what touch or word he needed at any given moment.

Rose, his Rose, oh God.

"Doctor," she finally said, her voice like a ghost.

"Rose." She could barely hear his words.

"Doctor," she said again, and she ran to him. She ran to him and he dropped the machine and opened his arms to her, hugging her and spinning her around. The happiness that exploded in him was one he hadn't felt in years, since the last times he had travelled the universe with this girl. He didn't know he could miss anyone the way he missed her, didn't know anything could smell as sweet as the shampoo in her hair.

"Don't you look smashing!" he finally said, putting her down but keeping his arms around her.

"Could say the same about you, Doctor, though I'm not so sure about bow tie over there."

They both looked at Eleven, who pouted. "Awfully rude."

Then for the first time, Ten's eyes found David. For a moment there was a tension between them, but then Ten strolled over to him and shook his hand heartily.

"Well hello there! How's humanity suiting you?"

"Brilliantly."

"You look good!"

"You look better."

"Ah shucks."

Ten and David both turned to face Eleven and Rose, who were watching with bemused smiles.

"It's uncanny," Eleven said, looking between them.

"My boys," Rose squealed.

"We are not your boys," Ten and David said at the same.

"Hey, we do that!" Eleven said.

"What?" Ten and David said.

"That! Repeat things! Oh my God there are three of us."

"Four," a voice said from behind Ten and David, who spun around.

"I heard you talking before I came through the wormhole. You're all so young, how can you be the Doctor? And why are there two of you?" the new man asked. He was holding a fez in his hands.

Ten and David chuckled.

"It's a long story," David said.

"Yes, very long."

"Hang on, that was in our world," Rose said, pointing to the fez.

"Yes, well, wormholes can sometimes exhibit suctioning behaviors, kind of like black holes, especially if something else has already gone through," Ten said. "The fez might have been sucked from your world into the space-time vortex and then gone through another wormhole to this Doctor because his timeline is crossed with all of ours too and that means that-"

"We get the point," the War Doctor said. "Do I really have to become you?"

Ten rolled his eyes.

"Right," Eleven said, clapping his hands. "Okay, we're all here and we're all the Doctor or some version of him, cool, very cool. Now, we have to find the Queen."

"What Queen?" Rose asked.

"Elizabeth," Eleven replied. "He's getting married to her," he said, gesturing to Ten, who shrugged.

"Also a long story," Ten said apologetically. Rose stared at him a second more, slightly hurt.

Then came Elizabeth's soldiers crashing through the forest, guns all pointing at the five of them. "Which one of you is the Doctor? The Queen of England is bewitched. I will have the Doctor's head," the leader said.

"Well this has all the makings of your lucky day," the War Doctor said.

Ten and Eleven were back to back, waving their sonic screwdrivers around. David grabbed Rose's hand and the two stood warily alongside the Doctors.

The guards circled the Doctors, David and Rose, closing in around them.

"Why are there two of you?" the lead guard asked, eyeing Ten and David.

"I said the same thing at they wouldn't tell me," the War Doctor muttered.

"It must be witchcraft," the guard said. "Separate them!"

The other guards immediately darted forward, two grabbing each Doctor and David and one grabbing Rose.

"Oi, get your hands off her!" David said to the guard who had twisted Rose's arms behind her back. He just sneered at David.

The guards dragged them to two covered wagons, each of which was drawn by two horses. Making sure to separate David and Ten, the five were thrown into the wagons. Ten, Rose and Eleven ended up in the first wagon, and David and the War Doctor in the other.

"Can you at least tell us where you're taking us?" Rose shouted as the wagon door closed on them.

"The Tower of London, m'lady," the guard said with mock politeness. He laughed at spit in her face. "I get great enjoyment from watching witches like you burn at the stake." He sauntered away.

Rose turned away from the door, wiping her face.

"What a dog," she grumbled indignantly.

"Here, let me help," Ten said, taking off his jacket and dabbing at her face with it. "There you go. Much better." He rested on his hand on her cheek for a moment and saw a chill sweep through her body. So far away for so long, but here she was, brought out of the back of his mind to stand in front of him. "Much better," he repeated.

"If you two need to talk or something..." Eleven said from the bench on other end of the cart. "I could just stick my fingers in my ears or something. Sing to myself."

Ten dropped his hand; Rose looked away.

Ten started to say no but Eleven cut him off with a wave of his hand. It might have been four hundred years further from him, but he still remembered how Ten felt about Rose. So Eleven laid on his back, closed his eyes, stuffed his fingers into his ears and started humming lullabies to himself.

"I can't believe that's you," Rose said to Ten. "He's so..."

"Yeah, I know," Ten said. "But I've got my quirks, too."

"Like remember..." She stopped herself. Looked at Ten. Decided to cut to the chase. "Doctor, I miss you."

"I know," he said.

And she couldn't help herself; she kissed him. She threw her arms around him and kissed him, felt him kiss her back. After so many years of separation and fantasizing, here he was, her Doctor. His hands were on her hips, moving up and down her sides, and her hands were in his hair. She wanted all him entire, wanted to twine their beings together inseparably.

"Doctor," Rose breathed, tears in her voice. "Doctor."

He kissed her again, knowing he would probably never have another chance. They belonged in separate universes, and he belonged to the stars while she belonged to David. It was just that they had been too far for too long and he wanted her so terribly, wanted to feel her in his bones. She awoke so much in him that had been shut off, all of his love and the way he could be truly alive. She had always brought out the best in him. After all, she had been the one who had saved him from himself when he had just regenerated as the Ninth Doctor, when he was struggling to bear the weight of his crimes. No one else could have done what she had done, showed him to be good again. She was the reason he was who he was, and he owed her so much.

"Rose Tyler," said, savoring the taste of her name on his lips. "Rose Tyler, I..." He thought of that day on the beach, when he had let TenToo say the words for him even though his heart had been on fire and he was burning for her. This time, he finished the sentence for himself. "I love you," he whispered in her. "I love you and I had to say it just once. I love you." He kissed her for the last time.

Then he pulled away. He hadn't even noticed she was crying, but he made no move to wipe away her tears. Instead, he deliberately pocketed his hands and sat on one of the benches.

"And I love you, Doctor. I have David now, and he's not you and I love him but... I still love you, too."

"I know," he said.

She could tell he was done with the admissions. He never had been good with letting people inside, showing them how he felt. She wiped away her tears and sat beside him, curling her feet underneath her. He let her lean on him and rest her head on his chest.

"How have you been, Doctor?"

"Good, good," he said. "Travelling the universe, saving planets, you know."

"Same old same old, nothing important."

"Nah," he said. "How about you and... David?"

"We're married. We both work for Torchwood now. We have a flat just outside the city. Mum lives nearby with Tony and they visit all the time. He's growing up so fast, I wish you could meet him."

"Yeah, though I don't know about seeing Jackie again," he joked.

And they talked on and on, passing the times as they travelled to the Tower of London. They forgot about Eleven, on his side on the other end of the wagon.

But it was funny, how time travelling and crossed time streams worked. Everything that was happening to the War Doctor and Ten was becoming part of his memories. He was four hundred years older than them, though, and over four hundred years only the important stuff remained embedded his head. That didn't include what was happening to the War Doctor at that instant, but it did include every word that Ten and Rose were exchanging.

When Rose had first landed in the woods and Eleven first saw her face again, he almost couldn't breathe. His chest had tightened and his he remembered thinking, _It can't be her, it can't be her. I love her. It can't be her._

Luckily, he had seen her and David before they had seen him, so he had had time to recover. Even then, though, he couldn't express to Rose what he wanted to because Ten was nearby. Rose knew Ten he knew she needed him, not a new face, not Eleven.

So Eleven tried to let it go. He tried to be okay, but he lay with his back to them, breathing heavily as he tried to fight letting even a single tear fall. When Ten and Rose kissed Eleven wished it was him, his body and his lips and his personality, that was touching Rose. He could feel what Ten was feeling though, all the passion and helplessness. He felt so small when he was around her because the one thing he wanted the most was the one thing he could never have. He was a Time Lord, the Oncoming Storm, but even if his lips were on Rose's he could never actually have her. Even four hundred years couldn't take away that desperate yearning.

In all those years the fire had gone from flame to smoldering embers but Eleven still missed her, still wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss her hair. Instead he let Ten curl up next to her and just thought about what he would say to Rose if he could. He'd been practicing for centuries, thinking about how he would tell her that he travelled alone for a while and fell back into darkness, but memories of her helped pull him away from it. He would tell her about Amy and Rory and she would laugh at the right places. He would tell her about River and how they were married and how he loved her, too, but differently. Rose would understand, tell him it was okay and he was still a good person no matter who he loved, or whose deaths he had caused. It seemed so insignificant but he needed to hear that from her. To have her be two meters away and not be able to talk to her was agony.

Four hundred years. Four hundred years and the pain never faded. Eleven didn't think it ever would.


End file.
